


The Monster Under The Bed

by staringatstars



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley is Good With Kids (Good Omens), Demon Summoning, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Protective Crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-26 08:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20927504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staringatstars/pseuds/staringatstars
Summary: If Crowley ever finds out who gave his sigil and legitimate summoning instructions to a child there's going to be Hell to pay, but before that there's the odd situation of said child dragging him under the bed to hide from the "monster" to deal with.





	The Monster Under The Bed

**Author's Note:**

> For the Whumptober Prompt #1 "Shaking Hands" 
> 
> Inspired by this tumblr post - https://jemocha.tumblr.com/post/181690911495/part-1-of-a-comic-inspired-by-a-story-prompt-about

Crowley did not make a habit of gifting his summoning information to passersby he ran into on the London streets. For one, his sigil was a visual representation of his essence. In other words, very much not a toy for humans to draw and alter on a whim. To divulge such information was an act of trust that did not come naturally, and for good reason. 

Before Aziraphale had made it a point to destroy every earthly copy of their sigils shortly after the fourteenth century, the pair of them had been swamped with summonings. It’s extraordinarily difficult for a demon to tell the starving, sick, and desperate that there was nothing he could do for them, not when every blessing threatened to send the forces of Hell breathing down his neck, and their reactions to the rejection were on the norm… less than pleased. Usually involving pointy, sharp bits and prayers that made Crowley want to tear out his own heart and throw it at them. 

Funnily enough, if they had only asked nicely, he might have tried to bend a few rules, but instead they tried to bind him to their will - one thing the Serpent of Eden could never allow. Heaven didn’t want him, and Hell, despite its best efforts, did not own him, so he would be damned a second time if some halfwit human with chalk and candles and, he suspected, a little of Hastur’s guidance, would force him into doing _anything_. Should they try to compel him to breathe, he would hold his breath out of spite. 

No, if Crowley was going to risk his neck, it was going to be on his own terms. 

So you could imagine his surprise when he came to be aware of a familiar and insistent tugging around his navel. He’d been sharing a bottle of wine with Aziraphale, pleasantly buzzed, and then the tug turned into a yank. His eyes widened in surprise, his mouth parting to say something, though he’d forgotten what, and then he was standing in a bedroom, surrounded by a pentagram painted in pink nail polish, several candles that smelled of vanilla and cinnamon spice, and his own bloody sigil written on a piece of ruled paper, clutched in the trembling hands of girl about Adam’s age. 

Pale and waifish in the candlelight, she unsteadily climbed to her feet, swayed, then stumbled forward, tripping over her nightgown and colliding with the demon, who instinctively reached out to catch her. Gripping the girl by the arms, Crowley couldn’t help noticing how cold and thin she felt, as though he were holding up a skeleton - the shivering remains of a girl who was. 

“Woah! Hey, kid, are you okay?” slipped out. He hadn’t meant to say it. Mostly because she very obviously was about as far away from okay as one could get. What he really wanted to ask was- 

_How did you get my sigil? Did a smelly bloke with black eyes and a toad on his head give it to you? What if you had summoned a different demon, huh? Didn’t your parents ever teach you not to talk to strangers?_ He glanced down at the breached summoning circle where her bare feet stepped on the edge of the nail polish border with a loud groan. 

Before he could properly reprimand the child on proper demon summoning etiquette, though, she started tugging frantically at his arm, pulling him out of the circle with a frantic, “Please, the monster’s coming! We have to hide!”

“I-” Didn’t she realize the summoning had worked? Why else would he suddenly appear in her room? The monster wasn’t coming. It was already here. 

She was dragging the monster under the bed with her. 

Once they were both crammed under - well, Crowley was crammed, though not as much as he might have been if his corporeal form weren’t quite so lanky - she clung to him, burying her face in his shirt. His instincts screamed at him that he was missing something obvious, something he should have been able to recognize by now because he’d seen it before. Outside her door, somewhere in the hallway, there was a fleshy slam, like that of a fist hitting the wall, and she jolted, her breath quickening. In and out with the speed of a hummingbird's wings. 

The man outside bellowed, “Gabi!” And pounded the door, beating it as though he’d rather rip the hinges off the wall than turn the knob, and everything made sense. “Open the door, you little brat!” With Gabi hugging his waist so tightly, Crowley could barely breathe, and for once he was glad for it. It forced him to think. The last thing he wanted was for her to hear the Infernal curses threatening to spill forth with the unstoppable force of a flood. 

“I’m going to need you to trust me,” he whispered to her once he was sure neither a hiss nor Enochian would pass his lips. “I’m not going to let the monster hurt you, but I’m going to need you to let me go. Just for a minute.” 

The door swung open with a deafening bang. “GABI! I KNOW YOU’RE UNDER THERE, GABI!” A groping hand reached blindly for her. Gabi let out a small gasp, pressing into him further. One of Crowley’s hands came around her back, hovering over her protectively. 

Right. Leaving was off the table, then. 

Good thing he was a snake. 

“Cover your eyes,” Crowley said, a hiss slipping through. “Cover your ears.” 

Her head nodded vehemently, her small palms already clapped over her ears. Once he was satisfied she wouldn't peek, his neck and torso began to stretch, lengthening in ways his bones and muscles didn’t appreciate as they struggled to build extra vertebrae and extend. When the man reached down again, his wrist was snatched by an appendage that looked somewhat like a human hand, if a human had too many joints and nails that bent into claws. 

Without letting go, Crowley crawled out, but only his upper half. The flesh around his mouth peeled up to his cheeks to reveal venom-tipped fangs borne in a rictus grin. Tearing off his glasses, he sneered, “_**Get lost, Human.**_” 

The man let loose a scream, scrambling across the carpeting with a look of wide-eyed terror. Crowley knew it wasn’t enough even before he’d scented the air with his forked tongue. His jaw came unhinged, and inside his mouth, a gullet yawned, growing wider and wider until there was no doubt that if he so wished it, Crowley could snap the man’s neck and swallow him whole.

“_**Not so scary when up against something tougher than a little girl, are you? Listen, if you ever touch her again, I’ll rip you to shreds. And trussst me, I’ll know if you do.**_” The words were layered with suggestion, powered by a miracle so that even if the man managed to convince himself that this was all some kind of alcohol-induced nightmare, he would never forget the fear. It would haunt him for a long time to come, returning with a vengeance every time he so much as contemplated harming the girl. “_**Nod if you agree to my terms. If not, well**_,” the demon’s tongue darted over his lips, “_**I could always eat you.**_”

Frantically, the man nodded, and Crowley snapped his fingers, releasing him from his paralysis and letting him flee. Once that was done, the demon slipped back under the bed to find that Gabi had kept her promise. He touched her shoulder, “It’s okay to look now, Gabrielle. The monster’s gone.” 

Her brown eyes flew open, still glassy with fear. It was only when she gasped that Crowley realized he’d forgotten to retrieve his shades, and he squeezed his slitted eyes shut, cursing himself. “Please don’t cry. I swear I’m not going to hurt you.”

He held his breath, waiting for her to scream. Instead, there was a tentative tap on his shoulder, then another, this time just a little more insistent. Against his better judgment, he opened his eyes a sliver. A look of awe came over her. Awe and curiosity. 

And Crowley knew without a shadow of a doubt he was in trouble.

It was several weeks later when bruises started appearing on Crowley’s skin. He didn’t think much of them at first, but then his lip cracked open while he was speaking to Aziraphale, blood dribbling over his chin, and before the angel could do more than make a noise of concern, he snapped his fingers and was gone.

This time, the angel followed, tracking him down with a miracle of his own to find Crowley bent over the cowering figure of a bearded man in his late 40’s. His mouth was extended to the point his chin reached his waist, red and black scales rippling over his flesh. 

It had been a long time since Aziraphale had seen Crowley lose control to this extent. Usually, it required some kind of botched exorcism. When he noticed the girl huddled behind his legs, however, hunched in on herself with bruises on her skin and blood trickling down her face, it all made sense. This was the child who had summoned Crowley, and the man…

It would seem that the man had broken his word. 

Even so, Aziraphale wouldn’t allow Crowley to burden his conscious or his stomach with the death of a human. He stepped forward cautiously so as not to startle him, “Crowley.” It rang through the quiet room, carrying the weight of thousands of years of shared tragedies. 

The demon’s eyes darted to him, glowing with fury and fire. “He hurt her, Aziraphale. He needs to pay for that.”

“And he will,” Aziraphale said, keeping his voice steady and measured. “I’m going to call Child Protective Services. We’ll let the humans take care of things. They’ll take her away from this dreadful place and find a family that will love young Gabrielle as much as she deserves.” Gradually, the flames in Crowley’s gaze dimmed and his jaw lifted to return to its proper position, though he scowled at the man pleading for his life on the floor, as though to remind him that swallowing him whole was still a very tempting alternative. Once Crowley was satisfied, he knelt beside Gabrielle to gently prod her shoulder. “In the meantime,” Aziraphale continued while the child glanced around, getting her bearings, “she can come back to the bookshop with us, if she likes.” She blinked owlishly at him, confused. 

Crowley rubbed the bridge of his nose with exasperation. “Right. Hold on to that thought.”

He took Gabrielle aside, speaking to her low tones, though he would occasionally gesture at Aziraphale, and when the murmuring pitched up for the tail end of a question, the girl nodded so eagerly Aziraphale’s heart soared. Crowley glanced at him over his shoulder with a thumbs-up and one of his softer smiles.

Before they left, deciding to chance the London streets with a taxi this time around, Crowley bent down to growl into the man’s ear, “You would have given me indigestion, anyway,” eliciting a frightened whimper that didn’t exactly make him feel better but hardly made him feel worse. 

Once they were back at the bookshop, Gabrielle was seated on the couch to have her injuries looked at and properly cared for. Crowley gave her an ice pack for her bruises, then spent the next thirty minutes siphoning away her pain in increments and healing as much of the lingering damage from her old wounds as he could without drawing any unnecessary attention to the deeds from Above or Below. Aziraphale would take care of the rest if need be, but for now he was a bit preoccupied with whipping up a batch of his finest cocoa, coaxing the fire into a pleasantly warm blaze, and finding the perfect blanket to fit a child. Crowley was actually fairly certain that the angel owned no such thing, yet didn’t doubt that he would turn up with one, eventually. 

She fell asleep soon after draining her mug, collapsing sideways onto the couch like a great oak felled in a forest. Crowley moved to sit beside her, careful not to dip the couch too much. Somehow, Adam was responsible for bringing her into his life. For someone so against meddling, he sure didn’t seem to mind delegating his meddling to others, though Crowley found he didn’t mind it overly much, only hoped that the boy didn’t make a habit of it. 

A small frown crossed the girl’s features as she slept, and she curled inwards, tucking her knees to her chest under the blanket. A wavy lock of hair came loose, brushing her cheek, and as Crowley moved to brush it back, a whisper of power passed from him to the child

Unburdened of whatever dark thoughts had threatened to overwhelm her, her brow gradually began to relax.

What was it Aziraphale always said?

Ah, yes. That was it. 

“Sleep well,” he murmured to the sleeping child. “When you wake, you’ll have had a dream of whatever you like best.”


End file.
